Completely true ... all of it.
73,
Dave AB7E
On 12/14/2019 7:46 PM, EricJ wrote:
We're missing the point here somehow. Siri's answer should have been
"The best way to contact Helen is to pick up your phone and call her."
Anything else is pretty much a waste of time and resources just to
talk to Helen. Seriously, there's a sizable investment in specialized
equipment to make contact via AMSAT or whatever. The contact is set up
for them. Then Jon and Helen wait to be told when the link is ready.
If that's worth doing and will attract young people, then just shoot
me. It sounds terminally boring.
Making that investment in specialized equipment can't be justified as
utilitarian communication because it's expensive and inefficient. If
the point is to contact your friends any time you want to, they are
already doing that with a half a dozen reliable instant technologies
all accessible from the same smartphone. I don't get where ham radio
comes in to solve a problem they have already solved. Certainly not
with a system that requires waiting 15 minutes for a satellite to get
in position, and a Cupertino Robot to set up the call.
I don't have the answer to attracting young people to a rapidly
changing hobby in an even more rapidly changing world. The aspects of
the hobby that attracted many of us was the sheer magic of radio
itself. We weren't attracted to it because it let us contact our
friends. Even then we had the telephone for that. We were attracted to
the magic. Nine times out of ten, the communication part was "599 OM
PSE QSL".
I always heard how DX contacts would allow me to learn about other
cultures. Actually, it did. After exchanging signal reports, I'd look
up their city with an atlas or encyclopedia. But I learned zip on the
air. A few California Kilowatts could hog a DX station, and chit chat
for a few minutes, and did because they could. But the rest of us
never got beyond the basic exchange and fought like hell for that. But
it was magic so it didn't matter that it wasn't all that practical.
The magic that attracted us is gone. Maybe there's new magic to be
found, but it's different magic that most of us with 30-70 years in
the hobby won't understand...and probably won't like. We are the wrong
people to even be considering answers but anyone expecting to make a
living from the hobby will have to find that new magic. It ain't
instant communication and it ain't the ham radio equivalent of retro
turntables.
Eric KE6US
ex-K1DCK, WA6YCF, WB2PVW
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